Open and Civil Political Discourse in Manassas

Haydon School / Trailer Park

Chairman Albrecht and Vice Chairman Bushnell invite you to celebrate their re-election with their request for 4 new trailers, i.e., modular classrooms for your kids at Haydon Elementary ! Festivities will be held at City Hall at a meeting of the Manassas City Planning Commission on Wednesday June 6, 2012, at 7:30p.m.

I hope the trailers don’t cut into the funds for the new Central Office building.

Yes, Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m. Those of us who live by the school have all gotten the notice. Most not happy. But I guess neighborhood politicians Jon Way and Scott Albrecht don’t mind since they don’t have kids who will be placed in those trailers.

Planning Commission was not happy with MCPS trailer solution to MCPS’ (and Education Forward’s) self-made crisis i.e, 22 to 1 ratio must be adhered to according to MCPS spokesman. So we must have trailers at Haydon and Weems! Approved, but with two caveats school board must come back in five years to get reapproval and the Planning Commission unanimously voted to encourage both City Council and School Board to seek alternatives to the Trailer Solution. Better than I expected, but it will take the City Council to protect the kids from the School Board and Central Office’s Trailer Park solution to Manassas’ Education woes.

I offer the predicition the Council will support the “five year plan” given the Mayor has said his objective is to work with the School Board to do a review of all school facilities needs based on projections, and then work to have a proper CIP for MCPS. This is also a strategy within the draft April 2012 version of the Comp Plan out for public comment.

Well if they do, I think I will ask the school PTA to hold an official ribbon cutting ceremony and we can name the trailers after Hal: “Hal’s Halls of Learning.” And maybe we can get GMU to author a study on the Albrecht Trailer Solution to a school system in crisis.

No one from the central office or school board has asked teachers, staff, or parents for any alternative to the trailers at Haydon. Of course, they are still planning and dreamiing about how to build new buildings for themselves rather than giving the kids of Manasssas decent facilities. Ray, you ever hear any discussion about renovating Baldwin?

sometimes trailers are the only solution. every school system in this area has them or has used them. but maybe vouchers would re-allocate enough kids that there wouldn’t have to be so many of them? we had trailers where i went to school and they were fine. as long as they have heat and AC.

Sometimes but not this time. The Planning Commission recommended that they consider alternatives, they should. Temporarily dividing up the Haydon Library would be a good start, a library that big for a K-4 is a ridiculous space. If we don’t have people on staff capable of figuring out how to do it, have the kids figure out how to break the space up. We can label it architects of the future program and have the local papers who specialize in smiley face stories come in and cover it.

Vouchers for a longer term solution beyond the next school year might be a good idea to deal with the space issue. Combine that with the esol requirements for the kids to be proficient before they come into the classroom and we might be able to take the pressure off existing schools. The old public school owned by Manassas Baptist Church on Sudley might be an good place to scout out.

divinding a library is a new idea around here, but I remember in the dark ages of my elementary school days we had one class a week in the library. that class focus was on reading & comprehension, and what better place than a library.

Doug…on coversations about renovating Hayden….yeah, heard them…and heard them..and heard them. Closer question would be in what years have I heard that over the last 18 years lived here? Answer: just about every one, but definitely when election year came around.

No consistent CIP….said more than once make the school CIP look like the City so you could at least keep track of the idea…for that matter, since the Council holds the purse string on capital improvement bucks, make it so there is one CIP for across the City so the school board quits loosing the thought to replace buildings.

is there any way to get the local paper to let you guys do a collaborative weekly or daily column on education? it’s the only way i can think of to get all of your ideas out to more people and maybe then at least a few more voters to get involved. what was the voter turnout? around 10 percent? too bad there aren’t laws requiring parent involvement in schools. one day there will be whether it starts state by state or one big sweeping federal law. i think there should be a law requiring substitute teaching for a short spell just like jury duty. then everyone gets a taste of what is going on and their input would have some weight.

Erin over at Patch did invite me to blog over there, but I find Patch, J&M, and the Observer all limited to a certain degree by their revenue relationships with the local business community and government entities. Nothing surprising there, they’re businesses.

There was a modest increase in voter turnout this year which I think the contributors to this blog helped to make happen, but for all intensive purposes, I thought the election was over when they took out Lori Perez as a candidate for school board. Lori represented the fourth piece of a bloc vote that could have thrown out the entire Educational establishment in Manassas. Manassas voters were not given that opportunity because of the interference of politicians in the electoral process. I’m sure that the Mayor and others who forced Lori from the ballot take offense at my take on what they did, TOO BAD. They’ve messed and screwed around with our kids education for too long in this town. Trailers back at Haydon is a perfect example of the comedy of errors that our school system inflicts on the kids, teachers and parents in this town.

Ray says that dividing up the library at Haydon is a new idea around here and he’s right to a degree. It’s not something that has been discussed and why is that? I’ll tell you why. The same people who designed a huge library for a k-4 school are the same people who are responsible for responding to the school system self-made crisis of maintaining a 22 to 1 ratio. They aren’t going to come up with an idea that says OOPS what were we thinking, they are going to come up with an idea which “everybody does” i.e., trailers. They don’t care if common sense says: huh? you spent over 1.7 million a few years ago in part to get rid of trailers and now the same bright planners are saying we need trailers yesterday, don’t think Manassas just put them in by Fall 2012!

Well “Don’t Think!” is not a good mantra by which to run a school system.

Please note that when MCPS “spent over 1.7 million a few years ago” that Manassas City planners had said the City was “built out,” and that a significant addition of children to the school system could not happen. Look around at the City’s development since then, virtually all high-density and perfect for growing families. Mayfield was specifically designed to take the burden off of all 5 elementary schools and Metz Middle three years ago, because at that time all those schools were overcrowded. Mayfield returned space and balance. But we’ve had more kids since then, so of course the schools are returning to their packed states, particularly with mandates to reduce class size. It’s a pretty simple cause and effect, and one that should surprise nobody.

The reduce class size mantra was one of the great ideas of Education Forward. So Haydon and Weem parents can blame the participating City Council members as much as the School Board for sending their kids back to the trailers. Great job managing the headlines Manassas city leaders: Trailers for the kids, new buidings and re-election for the adults running the schools.

Perhaps it is time to refresh Haydon and Weems parents minds as to just who those participating City Council members are that ‘served’ on the Education Forward Committee. Frankly, putting kids back in trailers is inconsistent with the message of image some on the City Council are promoting for this city to be a destination to relocate, raise your family and age in place!

From a Mananass Patch article covering April 30th meeting/campaign rally:

“During the budget process, the committee recommended lowering class sizes, increasing preparation for college by paying for AP tests and continuing funding for existing programs as ways to obtain immediate results in the day-to-day operation and management of the schools.”

“About Education Forward: Education Forward held it first meeting in spring 2011 and is a special group made up of three Manassas City council members ( Vice Mayor Andy Harrover, Sheryl Bass and Mark Wolfe) and three school board members ( Vice-chair Arthur Bushnell, Pam Sebesky and Tim Demeria) that was formed to address the issue of low Standards of Learing (SOL) scores and the negative reports about Manassas City Schools.”